A set of two CDs on the Life and Work of Srinivasa Ramanujan designed and developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computings (C-DAC) National Multimedia Resource Centre (NMRC) and the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai was presented to His Excellency Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, President of India on December 24, 2004 at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. The set of CDs were presented by a delegation comprising of Dr. V. S. Ramamurthy, Secretary, Department of Science and Technology, Shri. S. Ramakrishnan, Former Director General, C-DAC, Dr. B. D. Acharya, Advisor, DST, Prof. K Srinivas Rao, IMSc, Mr. Dinesh Katre, Group Coordinator, NMRC, C-DAC, Dr. V. B. Kamble, Director, Vigyan Prasar and Dr. Anup Sinha, Head, NCSTC. The CDs commemorate and pay tribute to one of Indias greatest but little known mathematical genius and his contributions to the world of numbers.

The CDs were released by Dr. V. S. Ramamurthy during a special event earlier on the occasion of the 117th Birth Anniversary of Ramanujan organized at Jamia Milia on December 22, 2004. The Department of
Science and Technology (DST), Government of India sponsored the project.

Of the two CDs, the first covers the biographical details of his life in multimedia format along with the scanned contents of Ramanujans original Notebooks and the Collected Papers. It also features video interviews of eminent mathematicians and biographical articles on Ramanujan. The CD also boasts of a collection of rare photographs (more than 150), video clips of places of interest like the house of Ramanujan (now a Museum) in Kumbakonam and Namakkal. Voiceovers have been incorporated to narrate the biographical part of Ramanujans life in order to inspire students to develop an interest and learn more about the mathematical genius.

The second part of the CD besides containing the original Notebooks of Ramanujan and his Collected Papers, also features the five-volume work of Bruce C. Berndt entitled "Ramanujan's Notebooks". This makes it is possible to access both the original entries in the Notebooks and the work of Berndt on each one of them. The CD contains over 5000 pages of mathematical content.

Together, the two CD-ROMs attempt to provide an encyclopedic source for information on the life of Ramanujan and his invaluable work contained in his Notebooks and Collected Papers, which continue to be a source of inspiration to generations of mathematicians. This is the first initiative of its kind taken for preserving the scientific heritage of India. Several officials from Science Cities and Science Museums in India have expressed their interest to setup Multimedia Kiosks with the above CDs for public viewing. The possibility of offering the first CD-ROM covering the biography of Ramanujan at a subsidized price to schools and colleges is also being explored.

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